Chapter Nine #2
‘There’s some guy who wants her to go back to England to be with him. Like a guy with actual brains and a good job.’
‘She told me.’
‘Yeah, well, at least he ain’t from a shithole like Rapture. She’s too good for you. Did you know the mayor’s her stepmom?’
Well, at least he knows now who his savior is. ‘Yeah, I knew that. But I barely even know her.’
‘She don’t seem a lot like other girls from Canyon.’
‘That’s because she’s not from Canyon, idiot.’
We lie there in silence.
‘Mom’s worried you’re gonna die alone, you know.’
‘What?’ I blurt out, even though I heard him crystal clear.
‘Thinks it’s your pa’s fault you don’t know how to love anyone.’
I have to remind myself that these are words coming out a fourteen-year-old’s mouth. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Means she thinks all the girls you hook up with shows you’re turning out like your deadbeat dad.’
This is not news. Mom keeps on at me, like, you’re twenty-three, why don’t you have a girlfriend, and questioning if my father walking out when I was nine is the reason for my lack of a serious relationship. ‘Your deadbeat dad left too, remember, asshole. Before Mase even came into the world.’
‘Actually, that’s the difference between you and me. I got no recollection. You though… she thinks you’re too afraid to get attached to anybody.’
I’ve had it with this shit. ‘Can we stop with the psychoanalyst bullcrap? Go to sleep. What would you know about anything anyway?’
I hear him shift underneath the covers. ‘Just sayin’, bro.’
The room fills with another silence, except the whir of the AC above our heads.
‘Do me a favor?’ Noah says after a moment. ‘Don’t just sleep with Hollie then never talk to her again.’
‘I wasn’t planning on sleeping with Hollie,’ I snap in return. ‘What reason would I have to sleep with her?’
‘Not your type neither, huh? Didn’t think so. Too nice. Not a big enough rack. Well, she’s better off without you. I like her a lot. She needs to be treated decent.’
I roll onto my other side and face the wall. ‘Fuck you, Noah. You don’t know shit.’
I don’t sleep after that exchange.
It’s none of my mom’s business that I haven’t had a girlfriend in a while, or like, ever.
So what? It’s not like I make promises to girls I don’t keep.
They know what to expect if they come up above Scotch & Smoke with me.
And the ones who go to bed with me, if they express an interest in something more?
Well, I shut that kind of talk down pretty quick.
It don’t make me like my father, I’m just not interested in a relationship.
An image of my dad floats through my mind.
One when he was a young man, playing with me and Logan when we were just boys, five or six, out in the backyard with the baseball glove.
There was laughter back then. Rapture was a thriving township, long before the land was sold. We were good at playing happy families.
Then work opportunities began to dry up.
I was nine when he left. Lo was eleven. They said he was depressed, but I knew that he wasn’t faithful to my mom.
She didn’t have to say nothing. Sometimes, he’d have other women drop him off at the house after he’d hit the bar, had a few drinks, then taken ’em out the back.
Dad wasn’t exactly known for his high standards.
It used to be, a few years ago, that on those nights I’d hook up, I’d be lying naked next to the girl I’d just been inside and I’d panic, just wanting her out of there.
I guess, in case the next morning she’d wake up in my bed and demand I tell her that I love her, or want me to take her out on dates I had no interest in going on.
I’d freak out. So now, when I take a girl above Scotch & Smoke to hook up – which doesn’t exactly happen much these days – I’ve already detached myself.
Most times, I’ll go back downstairs and work on a bike while she sleeps, and by morning, when she wakes up alone in the bed, it’s clear as crystal we’re through.
It’s not personal. I’m just not built that way.
I don’t call it fear of intimacy. I call it good sense. I saw what happened to my mom when my dad left, and heartbreak seems like a shitty place to hang out, so why would I wanna go there?
My thoughts creep to Hollie, asleep in the room next door.
It’s weird how suddenly Noah’s all protective of her, when he doesn’t even know her.
And all that crazy talk about me asking her out?
Hollie Palmer. Right. Like I would ever ask out the mayor’s stepdaughter.
That’d be like putting my hand into a hornets’ nest.
Sure, Noah’s right, she’s not like those other girls from Canyon. It’s clear she’s been to college someplace decent and got herself a little more streetwise. Maybe even got laid some.
Within a second, I’m back in that closet. Only this time, there’s no doubt it’s Hollie I’m making out with, and we’re going for it, getting all hot and heavy.
Damn if I’m not half-mast at the thought of it. Against the pillow, I shake my head, bring myself back to the reality of this budget motel. Across from me, Noah’s snores are raising the roof.
I need sleep. I gotta focus on getting him to Santa Fe.
I cannot be thinking about Hollie Palmer in that way.